Postglacial viability and colonization in North America’s ice-free corridor

@article{Pedersen2016PostglacialVA,
  title={Postglacial viability and colonization in North America’s ice-free corridor},
  author={Mikkel Winther Pedersen and Anthony Ruter and Charles Earl Schweger and Harvey Friebe and Richard A. Staff and Kristian K. Kjeldsen and Marie Lisandra Zepeda Mendoza and Alwynne B Beaudoin and Cynthia Zutter and Nicolaj Krog Larsen and Ben A. Potter and Rasmus Nielsen and Rebecca A. Rainville and Ludovic Orlando and David J. Meltzer and Kurt H. Kj{\ae}r and Eske Willerslev},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2016},
  volume={537},
  pages={45-49}
}
During the Last Glacial Maximum, continental ice sheets isolated Beringia (northeast Siberia and northwest North America) from unglaciated North America. By around 15 to 14 thousand calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. kyr bp), glacial retreat opened an approximately 1,500-km-long corridor between the ice sheets. It remains unclear when plants and animals colonized this corridor and it became biologically viable for human migration. We obtained radiocarbon dates, pollen… Expand
View on Nature
eprints.gla.ac.uk
248 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
8
Background Citations
58
Methods Citations
11
Results Citations
3

248 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Deglaciation of the Pacific coastal corridor directly preceded the human colonization of the Americas
TLDR
It is concluded that CIS retreat ensured that an open and ecologically viable pathway through southeastern Alaska was available after 17 ka ago, which may have been traversed by early humans as they colonized the Americas. Expand
Origins and spread of fluted-point technology in the Canadian Ice-Free Corridor and eastern Beringia
TLDR
Results link morphologies and technologies of Clovis, certain western Canadian, and northern fluted points, suggesting that fluting technology arrived in the Arctic from a proximate source in the interior Ice-Free Corridor and ultimately from the earliest populations in temperate North America, complementing new genomic models explaining the peopling of the Americas. Expand
Ancient DNA: Muddy messages about American migration
TLDR
A series of environmental reconstructions based on coring of lake sediments in what was once the ice-free corridor between Siberia and Laurentide indicate that the corridor would have still been inhospitable even after humans are known to have arrived in the Americas south of the ice. Expand
The Pre-Columbian Peopling and Population Dispersals of South America
This paper summarizes the current archaeological, physiographic, demographic, molecular, and bioarchaeological understanding of the initial peopling and subsequent population dynamics of South… Expand
Late Pleistocene glacial transitions in North America altered major river drainages, as revealed by deep-sea sediment
TLDR
Chemical weathering proxies and zircon geo-thermo-chronometry are applied to late Pleistocene sediment recovered from the deep-sea Mississippi fan, revealing interactions between the Laurentide ice sheet and broader Mississippi–Missouri catchment between ca. Expand
Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada
TLDR
New AMS radiocarbon dates obtained on cut-marked bone samples identified during a comprehensive taphonomic analysis of the Bluefish Caves fauna demonstrate that humans occupied the site as early as 24,000 cal BP (19,650 ± 130 14C BP), and offer archaeological support for the Beringian standstill hypothesis. Expand
Setting the Stage: The Late Pleistocene Colonization of North America
The timing of human entrance into North America has been a topic of debate that dates back to the late 19th century. Central to the modern discussion is not whether late Pleistocene-age populations… Expand
Glacial history and palaeo-environmental change of southern Taimyr Peninsula, Arctic Russia, during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
We here reconstruct a glacial and climate history of arctic NW Siberia for the last ~600,000 years, based on the stratigraphy and chronology of 35 studied river sections on the southern Taimyr… Expand
Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans
TLDR
The results suggest that the far-northern North American presence of northern Native Americans is from a back migration that replaced or absorbed the initial founding population of Ancient Beringians, and support a long-term genetic structure in ancestral Native Americans, consistent with the Beringian ‘standstill model’. Expand
Evidence of human occupation in Mexico around the Last Glacial Maximum
TLDR
Results of recent excavations at Chiquihuite Cave provide new evidence for the antiquity of humans in the Americas, illustrate the cultural diversity of the earliest dispersal groups (which predate those of the Clovis culture) and open new directions of research. Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 76 REFERENCES
Bison phylogeography constrains dispersal and viability of the Ice Free Corridor in western Canada
TLDR
The chronology supports a habitable and traversable corridor by at least 13,000 cal y BP, just before the first appearance of Clovis technology in interior North America, and indicates that the corridor would not have been available for significantly earlier southward human dispersal. Expand
Late Quaternary paleoenvironments of Northwestern North America: implications for inland versus coastal migration routes
Abstract Although the long held normative view of New World colonization relies on entrance through an interior ice-free corridor by terrestrially adapted big-game hunters, a recently demonstrated… Expand
Late Pleistocene chronology and environment of the “ice-free corridor” of northwestern Alberta
Abstract Pollen and macrofossil analyses of two radiocarbon-dated lake sediment cores in the upper Peace River district were used to investigate the controversial late-glacial geochronology of the… Expand
Late Pleistocene colonization of North America from Northeast Asia: New insights from large-scale paleogeographic reconstructions
Advances in large-scale paleogeographic reconstruction define physical and environmental constraints relevant to understanding the timing and character of the first colonization of the Americas… Expand
Mammalian faunal dynamics in Late Pleistocene Alberta, Canada
Abstract As a conduit for the passage of faunal and human species into the New World, the much-abused concept of the so-called “ice-free corridor” has served its purpose. The corridor concept has had… Expand
Pleistocene Brown Bears in the Mid-Continent of North America
TLDR
Mitochondrial DNA recovered from a 26-thousand-year-old brown bear fossil from central Alberta shows that it belongs to the same clade of bears inhabiting southern Canada and the northern United States today and that modern brown bears in this region are probably descended from populations that persisted south of the southern glacial margin during the Last Glacial Maximum. Expand
Glacial Survival of Boreal Trees in Northern Scandinavia
TLDR
The presence of a rare mitochondrial DNA haplotype of spruce that appears unique to Scandinavia and with its highest frequency to the west is shown—an area believed to sustain ice-free refugia during most of the last ice age, challenging current views on survival and spread of trees as a response to climate changes. Expand
Faunal record identifies Bering isthmus conditions as constraint to end-Pleistocene migration to the New World
TLDR
A combination of ancient DNA, 14C dating, hydrogen and oxygen isotopes, and collagen sequencing is used to explore the colonization history of one of the few other large mammals to have successfully migrated into the Americas at this time: the North American elk (Cervus elaphus canadensis). Expand
A Framework for the Initial Occupation of the Americas
Abstract A substantial amount of archaeological data suggests groups with markedly different lithic technologies and subsistence adaptations were widespread throughout both American continents by… Expand
Coalescence of late Wisconsinan Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets east of the Rocky Mountain Foothills in the Dawson Creek region, northeast British Columbia, Canada
Abstract Geomorphic, stratigraphic and geochronological evidence from northeast British Columbia (Canada) indicates that, during the late Wisconsinan (approximately equivalent to marine oxygen… Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...